As we wake up this morning thousands of adult Australians are kicking off day one of their New Year diet. But one woman is giving up eating for a very different reason. The head of Healthy AustraliaMs Ruby O'Rourke has vowed to stop eating to bring attention to the health and nutrition rights of children in institutional child care. Ms O'Rourke says that an alarming number of Australia's 1.4 million children in child care services are at risk of growing up over their healthy weight because their nutritional needs are not being met.
"If the Government continues to fail children's nutritional requirements by not feeding children properly, then I am not going to feed myself properly," Ms O'Rourke said. Ms O'Rourke plans to go without food for 46 days - 1 second for every child aged between 0 and 14 – starting today (1 January 2019) outside the Royal Women's Hospital (Melbourne). She says she is staging the hunger strike because she profoundly cares about children.
